by J. T. Hardy
"I'm so buying better coffee when we get home," I said.
"Damn straight we are."
We enjoyed the brew and the quiet until Libby shifted in her chair. "There he is."
Cavanaugh pulled into the parking lot. If he'd looked up and over he would have seen us, but his focus seemed elsewhere.
He parked and eventually walked into the café and toward our table, a thin leather computer case slung over one shoulder. His button-down was clean and pressed, but his hair barely looked combed. Shadows under his eyes and on his jaw suggested he hadn't gotten much sleep. Mussed and rumpled worked for him. It softened some of his hard edges.
"Good morning," I said, pushing a chair out for him with my foot. He hung the case on the chair and sat down.
"Is that for me?" He indicated the cup on the table.
"They just brought it."
He wrapped his hands around it. No cream or sugar. "You look more awake. Why don't you tell me what you need."
I glanced at Libby and she gave me an encouraging go-ahead nod.
"Last night's security footage from the Yavapai Plaza." Risky, as the footage would also show Daniel and Zack, but they were big boys. They could take care of themselves. "We're looking for a white van parked out front between eight and eight-thirty. I need to know where it went, track it as far as you can."
A bird chirped high and sharp as Cavanaugh considered it and my unease grew. "Do you know which cameras?" he said at last.
I slid a piece of paper with a list of store names, addresses, and times to him. "It's all here."
"I'll see what my contact can do." He tucked the paper into his front pocket. "Why is this van important?"
"The people in it tried to kidnap me last night."
He straightened, concern pushing past his weariness. "Are you all right?"
"We're fine. We fought them off, and they escaped in that white van. We hope the security footage caught a plate, or at least where they left the main roads."
"You fought them off?" he asked slowly, a hint of disbelief in his tone. "Just the two of you?"
I glanced at Libby. She'd heard it, too. It wasn't a sexist, "Aw shucks, two purty gals can't defend themselves," kind of surprise, but a shock that we'd survived at all.
"Sure. I doused them in holy water while Libby shot them." Let's see how much he really knew.
Cavanaugh's eyes widened. "That worked?"
"Well enough." I picked up my cup and took a sip. He watched as if unsure what to make of me or Libby.
"So tell me," I began, "how long have you known about the existence of vampires?" I liked the way it sounded, all official and in the know. We were serious people who knew serious things.
Cavanaugh twitched, but didn't look at me like I was nuts. He swallowed his mouthful of coffee and gently set the cup back down. He stared at it a moment longer, but then something in his demeanor shifted. Looser shoulders, a lower wariness level, and a glimmer of hope now shone in his eyes.
"A little over a year," he said. "My colleague has known much longer. I discovered them when he asked me to look into a missing boy from Mobile. He knew the grandmother."
"You found vampires?"
He cringed. "I found something. I smelled the garlic before I got to the front door. The entrance reeked of it. Crosses hung on the door, the walls, even the doormat had a cross on it. The mother refused to talk to me. Only screamed, 'Vampires took my son,' every time I asked a question."
"You believed her?"
Cavanaugh shook his head. "I thought someone ought to call the FBI. The father had also gone missing and no one was doing anything to find him. Grandma swore the crazy wife was to blame, but my colleague thought there was more to it. He neglected to mention what took them when I agreed to speak to the boy's mother."
"What changed your mind?"
He shifted in his chair, looking anywhere but at us. The bravado was gone, as was the law enforcement vibe. This felt like the real Cavanaugh--a man in over his head who was more worried about me and a woman I didn't even know than his own skin.
"I was approached at my car." He took another sip and another deep breath, paying way more attention to his cup than it deserved. "I never heard a thing until it spoke, and when I looked up, I saw...something...reflected in the window."
"Blurry, distorted, like looking at a movie projected on wrinkled plastic wrap?"
Relief flashed in his eyes and he nodded. "It gave me chills. It looked like a man but everything about it was wrong. It asked me who I was. I said a friend from work, checking on a woman who'd just lost her son in an accident." He paused and shook himself. "I've no idea what possessed me to lie to it."
I placed a hand on his arm. "It probably saved your life."
"Maybe, but two days later the mother took hers. Her suicide haunts me as much as the monster."
How awful. The poor woman had lost her husband and her son, and I'd bet no one believed her when she explained what had happened to them.
"How did you find out about them?" Cavanaugh asked softly.
Dad's voice whispered in my ears to cut this guy loose, walk away and start my life over again. It was risky enough Libby knew the truth, but at least she was an asset. Cavanaugh was...
I looked at those hopeful, grateful brown eyes.
I sighed. He was my father twenty years ago, asking questions about a dead wife and finding no answers. Dad would have given everything he'd had to have found someone like me, who had answers to those impossible questions. Cavanaugh was definitely hiding things, but I believed he wanted to help me and the Rosenberg woman. Maybe even help my father.
Alone and on the run had gotten me no peace and no answers. I'd learned more in days with Libby at my side than I had in years on my own. I didn't have to trust him completely, just open the door a little.
"One of them killed my mother. They've been hunting my family and I want to know why."
"I'm so sorry. When did she die?"
"Twenty years ago." I bit my lip, debated how open I wanted to be. Rolled the dice. "Her name is on your list, right at the top, right above mine."
He blinked, confusion wrinkling his brow. "I don't..." His eyes widened and he sat straighter. "You asked me about Rebekah and Hannah Antonelli."
"I did."
"You and your mother."
"Yes."
Sadness filled his eyes, but he didn't let it tip over into pity. "Rebekah was killed on a road in Pensacola under unusual circumstances. Police thought the husband might have done it, but the evidence made no sense and scared them half to death. Nobody who worked that case would talk to me."
"And now you know why."
Blowing out a breath, he leaned back in his chair, his hands loosely around the cup. "These things have been doing this a long time, then."
"Yes and no," Libby said, glancing at me. My throat was too tight to speak, but I nodded for her to continue. "They used to kill, but now they've switched to kidnapping. The evidence we've found suggests that change happened within the last five years. We still don't know why, but it's related to the blood."
"That's why they're using the blood banks?"
"We think so. Best guess on what we've gathered so far, they're somehow identifying and tracking their victims through their blood."
He placed a hand over his mouth and stared off into the street. After a moment, he shook himself and looked back at us. "From what I've been able to uncover, these, uh, vampires, are getting bolder. They're escalating the kidnappings and people are disappearing after smaller and smaller intervals. It's terrifying."
"Any leads on your missing person?" I asked.
His face clouded and he shook his head. "All I have is the blood connection you also found."
"The most recent victim, Ivy Helgarson, gave blood at a Universal Blood Center the week she was taken," Libby said.
He nodded. "That fits the pattern. Every victim I've found also gave blood or had blood taken within two to six weeks of disappearin
g. It's how I was able to find other possible victims of, uh..."
"Vampire kidnappings," I said, even though it wasn't technically true. "It helps to say it out loud. Is the blood bank a vampire front?"
"I don't know. It seems legitimate, but I don't think everyone who works there is. I suspect the Ascendant Health Hospital Network is also connected. Universal Blood works with Ascendant, and several of the victims gave blood or had procedures at an Ascendant hospital shortly before they were taken. And Ascendant's headquarters is in Phoenix."
Only two hours away, and central to the kidnappings in this region. Impressive detective work. "Do you know if Thompson General is part of that network?" Dad received his treatment there. I'd bet a week's pay they belonged to the same group.
"Yes, they joined a few months ago. Anita Rosenberg also had her gall bladder taken out at an Ascendant hospital three weeks before she disappeared."
Which explained why they hadn't found Dad earlier. "They have people working inside the hospitals and blood banks. Any theories on why they need the blood?"
"Could it be a ritual of some type?" Libby added. Daniel had thought so.
Cavanaugh shook his head. "I doubt it. Rituals are traditionally performed at precise dates and times, and these kidnappings are erratic. I've found no patterns that suggest victims are taken at predictable intervals or at a specific pace." He reached behind him into the case and pulled out a small, silver laptop. "However, I did find this."
He brought up a file and showed us a map of the country. Red dots filled multiple areas of the map like a grid, most heavily concentrated in South Florida, New York and the Tri-State area, and California, with smaller areas in Georgia and Arizona, and bits around the Midwest and the Northeast.
Libby made a surprised noise. "That looks like a search pattern."
"That's what I thought, too." He tabbed over to another image, this time of Europe. Same dots, same grid. "It's not only in the U.S. I've found this same pattern internationally."
The sheer scope of it was chilling. This wasn't some crazy Pretty Boy with a wild idea--this was a systematic search of the entire human population. "How long have they been searching for people?"
"It's harder to uncover records the farther back you go, and in some of these regions it's impossible to find any records at all, but--" He paused and took a breath. "Thirty, forty years at least."
Kokabiel's interest in blood predated that by centuries if you factored in the vampire myths. Impossible to map those numbers out on a grid, but surely you could still track deaths and missing persons beyond the 1980s. I didn't want to think about how they tested the blood before science.
Images of Mom's ripped out throat kept popping into my mind. The Pretty Boy who'd killed her had been furious--yet disappointed--after he'd bitten her. Somehow he'd known from the taste that she didn't have what he wanted. I shuddered. Had he literally taste-tested her?
I shook the images away, a tiny voice echoing as they faded, that if she'd been taken later she might still be alive. Foolish thoughts. Pointless thoughts.
Cavanaugh frowned and leaned closer. "My colleague insists these creatures aren't sophisticated enough to organize like this, but I can't ignore the evidence."
"Vampires have always looked for blood," I said as if I was an expert, "but it's been random and disorganized before now. A person snatched here and there, maybe entire small towns back in the Dark Ages and whatnot. What changed? Why use blood techs and hospital labs? What do they hope to find?"
Because that was the million-dollar question.
Libby sat straight. "DNA?"
Cavanaugh snapped his fingers. "DNA testing was developed in the mid-80s. My research shows that the search increased exponentially since genetic testing became widespread."
"They're also taking families," I said. "It's genetic." A protein in the blood perhaps? An enzyme, something the fangels need to survive? Kokabiel had figured out how to identify whatever it was he needed. With minions placed in the hospital network testing blood, he only had to grab those with the best odds of being the right match. But why keep them? "How many blood centers and hospitals have facilities capable of testing the blood?"
"Most of them, I'd gather," said Cavanaugh.
Libby waved a hand as if this was inconsequential. "He can buy the equipment. All he needs are people to bring him samples of the blood."
Which he obviously had from the sheer number of missing persons. For all we knew, Kokabiel had been planning this for centuries, building wealth and power and cultivating, seducing, or kidnapping the right people to help him. He could have put minions in every hospital in the country, built or bought blood centers in key areas to collect the samples without anyone being the wiser. Universal Blood Centers might even be Pretty-Boy-owned and internationally operated.
Cavanaugh raised one finger. "Excuse me, he?"
I winced. Damn. I'd hoped to keep that little ace up my sleeve for now. "We think there's a ringleader. Someone running the whole operation."
"An organization of this size does suggest someone's directing it. Do you know who?"
I looked at Libby, unsure how much to divulge, but a string of pink Jeeps passing on the empty street behind him caught my eye.
And my memory.
"Pink Jeeps," I said instead. I'd seen those same Jeeps last night, right before Kokabiel had ambushed us. My mind flashed to a much smaller pink Jeep in the blood bank lab.
Cavanaugh's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."
"A woman at a Universal Blood lab had a smaller version of that same Jeep on her desk. She was the one doing all the paperwork." She must have come here at some point, maybe to deliver blood, maybe for some evil minion orientation, maybe even a weekend away with the fam, but she'd been here. UBC was part of this and they were here.
"Kokabiel's mole?" Libby said.
"Did you say Kokabiel?" Cavanaugh said, going pale despite the brisk chill in the air.
Damn. "Uh..." I said.
"That's the name of one of the biblical watchers of mankind."
"We were never properly introduced."
"He's mentioned in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch!"
I paused. Nah. Couldn't be the same guy.
He shoved back his chair and rose, throwing his laptop into its case before he'd even stopped moving. "I need to talk to my colleague."
"Right now?" I said.
"I'll call you. Don't do anything until I do." Cavanaugh fled as if his life depended on it. He had his phone out the instant he was far enough away not to be overheard.
"Well," Libby said. "That was suspicious."
"It seems our mild-mannered investigator knows much more than he's letting on after all."
"Follow him?" Libby asked.
I tossed down cash for the coffee. We'd paid for our breakfast already. "Absolutely."
"I'll drive. You suck at spy craft."
Chapter Eighteen
Our rental car had been parked on the street outside, perpendicular to the main road. We got to it and scrunched down in the seats before Cavanaugh's Camry emerged. A few minutes later, he left the lot. Libby pulled out slowly and followed him at a distance. Few cars were on the road, and one glance in the rear view would spot us.
"Maybe you should hang back some?" I said.
"I know what I'm doing."
The sky had grown considerably darker as the sun rose, the storm clouds thickening to a deep blue-gray. If it dumped all that moisture while we were behind him, this would be a short tail.
Libby let what few cars were on the road pull in between us. Cavanaugh didn't act like a man trying to shake a tail. No random turns, no varying his speed. He stayed consistently ahead of us, and after a few blocks, he turned into the parking lot of a large and unmistakable building.
Big, stylish, built from red and white stone that both caught the eye and blended into the landscape. A gardener in a wide-brimmed hat was hard at work trimming the already perfectly formed bushe
s around a sign that read St. Mary's Catholic Church.
"He hadn't struck me as the religious type," I said. "So I'd guess his colleague is a local boy."
"Wonder if Cavanaugh thinks you followed him to Sedona."
Possible. It did explain why our being here had surprised him. "Odd that he didn't mention that, isn't it?"
"Affirmative." Libby idled at the edge of the lot. "Keep following?"
I hesitated. If Hollywood had gotten it right, this could be a Pretty Boy-hunting HQ full of warrior-priests dedicated to the eradication of evil. Cavanaugh might actually work for people with power and influence, who really could help me get my father back.
"Yes. We need holy water anyway."
A long entry hall opened up to a room full of red cedar pews. Stained glass sat at the far end, with a lone spotlight illuminating a crucifix hanging above the altar. To my immediate right sat a large room with a conference table. On the left, a door led to an area marked "Offices." A school events poster hung next to it, divided into bright, cheerful boxes announcing bake sales and Bible study.
No sign of Cavanaugh or any warrior-priests-in-training.
Libby paused at the marble basin of holy water by the door and dipped in her fingers. She crossed herself and gave a little curtsy, then scanned the foyer and peeked down the halls.
All clear, she signaled.
In unison, we pulled heavy-duty water pistols out of the plastic bags from our shopping excursion last night and sank them into the basin. We'd hit a toy store and purchased the highest-volume Super Soakers they had in both easy-to-hide pistols and larger long-ranged rifles. They hadn't had the kind with water tank backpacks, but Libby had found a vest with ammo packs that held 100 ounces of liquid. We filled as many pistols and ammo packs as we could before the water ran dry, then tucked our gear back into our backpacks, storing what didn't fit back in the bags.
Libby flicked two fingers toward the rows of pews just past the interior doors. I crept forward and peeked inside. No one but a black-haired woman in her forties wiping down the pews with a fruity-scented oil.
